Photo by Ron Sinfelt

It’s April, and what’s a Tennessee angler to do? So much water and so many opportunities everywhere - from bass to bream, it’s a good time to be on the water. And, oh yeah, in April there’s another fish that draws thousands of Volunteer fishermen to waters within our borders along with many others from outside our state: the crappie. This month is as good as it gets when it comes to catching Tennessee papermouths.

Crappie by whatever name you know them are worth your time and trouble, and you won’t give them anymore trouble yourself than right now when they’re moving to shallow spawning areas. The only real problem is deciding where to go. We could argue all day about where the best Tennessee crappie fishing is found, but for this month, we’ve singled out three separate lakes across the state that are considered good, better and the best by many crappie anglers.

Whether one of them is your home lake or one you’ll want to visit in April, Douglas Lake in East Tennessee, Dale Hollow in Middle Tennessee, and of course, Reelfoot Lake in West Tennessee comprise our April breakdown. What’s most interesting is the different ways that anglers fish them. Let’s take what we can learn from each and apply them to your own fishing to make your April crappie fishing the best that it can be.

DALE HOLLOW — THE GOOD
Danny Stone is not only the TWRA creel officer at Dale Hollow Lake, he has also spent most of his life fishing its waters. Stone built a reputation a few years back as one of the lake’s best smallmouth tournament anglers, but he knows a thing or two about this legendary water’s crappie as well.

The veteran angler and creel specialist is the first to admit that he never believed restocking efforts would help put Dale Hollow’s crappie on the fishing map. He now says it’s the greatest thing he’s ever seen. Thanks to stocking efforts like last year’s placement of over 250,000 crappie fingerlings, Stone said the lake’s crappie angling is much better than he or anyone could have anticipated or expected.

Stone said because of the stocking project, black-nose crappie are now the most abundant and most caught crappie species on the lake. Although, he said, Dale isn’t the crappie fishery that nearby Center Hill Lake has, it has come a long way and has a bright future. Center Hill may produce more numbers, but Dale Hollow has always been about quality, and the crappie caught there are no exception.